The careful steps of Charles O’Riley sank deep into the thick, muffling pillow of snow without the slightest evidence of sound. The flakes settled softly in his wake, whirling flurries of a tender blindness, slowly, gently tucking away all traces of noise into the deep caress of forsaken dreams. The late hours of evening had yet to pass over the day, and O’Riley’s worn leather soles, peeling and brown-black from years of trudging through the winter snow, halted their steady march, paused, and settled their weight firmly to both feet, as their owner craned his head. Right hand absentmindedly clutching a tattered old tweedy hat to his head, as squinted through the snow at the bold, red “Condemned” letters spelled out across the cracked and dusty …show more content…
He had dropped his hat to rest before him, weighted with stones to keep it from being carried away in the crisp breeze, and as he sat on the cusp of the world, a man who had once opened doors for him let a coin fall in his hat without looking at him. O’Riley remembered that man, the magnificent quality of his tailored attire, the look of respect in his eyes, the way his dark eyebrows raised to barely conceal his surprise, the curve of his mouth as though hesitant of whether he was permitted to smile. But perhaps it had only been a figment of his imagination after all, the days of golden arches, of strings of pearls wrapped around elegant necks, of glittering jewels at the grandest parties, the hushed, awestruck whispers of his hotel, present under even the most insincere circumstances. Black Thursday as it was called had shattered those dreams, or begun them, for reality now faded to sublime, and sublime faded away with the